Long Exposures At Night

Photographing long exposures at night is always fun.  Heck, photographing anything at night is always a fun time.

In the photograph above, I was at the Monmouth County Fair, the same night as my fireworks story.  While walking around the fair, I noticed the spinning ride.  Because I had my Leica M9 with 50mm lens attached, I had to backup a bit in order to get the entire ride in the frame. No matter!

I took a few steps back, set up the tripod and framed.  Perfect!

Then I exposed to find the night sky too dark.  I wanted the ambient light to show beautifully in the night sky.  Since I did not have a neutral density filter with me, I closed the aperture to around f/22, thus letting me have a longer shutter speed.

By having a one and a half minute exposure, the ride’s lights and and moving people are all blurred.  In fact, most of the people that were around the ride you cannot see.  That is the beauty of long exposures.  The longer it is, the less moving objects will be in the photograph.

I am happy with the result, but what do you think?

Thanks for reading and happy shooting,

Scott